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34.21% Hogwarts' White Lord / Chapter 52: 52: Snape: There's Something Wrong With This Kid

Chapter 52: 52: Snape: There's Something Wrong With This Kid

"Ivan Ambrosius."

Hearing Snape call his name, Ivan nodded slightly toward him, his demeanor composed, neither humble nor arrogant.

"Another kid who thinks he's a celebrity," Snape muttered, but didn't dwell on it.

He continued calling names, and then looked up at the entire class.

His eyes were dark and empty, giving off the eerie feeling of two endless tunnels. "You are here to learn the precise science and exact art of potion-making," Snape's voice was barely louder than a whisper, yet every word carried through the room with a chilling clarity.

His presence alone commanded order in the classroom.

"Since there is no foolish wand-waving here, many of you will doubt this is real magic."

"I do not expect you to truly appreciate the subtle beauty of a cauldron with its shimmering fumes or the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind and ensnaring the senses…"

"I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death—but only if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

When Snape finished his brief speech, the classroom fell into an awkward silence.

Harry and Ronald exchanged confused looks, eyebrows raised.

Hermione Granger, on the other hand, had shifted to the edge of her seat, practically leaning forward, eager to show that she was anything but an "idiot."

Only Ivan remained calm, quietly waiting for Snape's usual outburst. He knew the Potions Master's temper all too well.

With Harry in front of him to attract Snape's ire, Ivan simply sat back and enjoyed the show in silence.

Snape didn't have a general disdain for celebrities; his resentment was reserved exclusively for Harry Potter.

"Potter!"

As Ivan predicted, Snape barked impatiently, "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

What root powder to what infusion?

Harry glanced helplessly at Ronald, who was just as lost as he was.

Hermione, sitting next to Ivan, instinctively started to raise her hand, but then she remembered Ivan's earlier warning.

'Ivan?'

She looked to him, but Ivan shook his head slightly in response.

Resisting the urge to answer and earn extra points, Hermione begrudgingly remained silent and turned her attention to Harry, waiting for his reply.

"I don't know, sir."

Harry admitted, clueless. He could feel the intense dislike radiating from Snape, and he didn't care for this cold, dark professor whose hair looked as though it hadn't seen a wash in ages.

"Tsk tsk."

Snape sneered, his lip curling in disdain. "Fame clearly isn't everything."

"Let's try again."

Snape: "Potter, if I ask you to find me a bezoar, where would you find it?"

Harry was silent once again; he didn't even have the slightest idea what a bezoar was.

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, sitting not far away, were laughing so hard that they were practically shaking with glee.

Especially Malfoy—if he hadn't been worried about Snape's reaction, he would have laughed out loud in Harry's face.

"..I don't know, sir."

"I don't think you've cracked open a single book before coming to school, have you, Potter?"

Harry forced himself to meet Snape's cold, piercing gaze.

When he was with the Dursleys, he had gone through all his books. But how could Snape expect him to memorize every single detail of "One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi"?

Was that even humanly possible?

Hermione: Yes, I can!

"Potter, then tell me the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"..I ..don't know."

The blatant targeting made Harry's blood boil. He glared at Snape, seething, while Snape, in turn, gazed into Harry's emerald-green eyes with something resembling nostalgia hidden behind the coldness.

Just looking at that infuriating face, which resembled that man, made Snape's anger boil over.

"How could this be happening?" Hermione, unable to bear it any longer, whispered to Ivan, "Does he have some grudge against Potter?"

Harry Potter, the savior of the wizarding world, was revered by so many witches and wizards. It was hard to imagine anyone treating him with such disdain.

But Snape's attitude was downright baffling to Hermione.

"Is he jealous of Harry? Could that be it?—"

"You answer it!" Snape snapped, having overheard Hermione's whisper.

His gaze, sharp as a snake's, locked onto her, and he asked her to answer the questions he had thrown at Harry earlier.

"Pffft!"

Ivan, trying but failing to contain himself, let out a laugh.

For a moment, the whole class fell silent. Even Snape paused, frowning at Ivan.

"Sorry, Professor," Ivan said after a quick cough. "I just remembered something amusing."

Ivan hadn't expected Snape to direct his ire at Hermione.

"Professor!" Hermione, seeing where this was heading and fearing Snape might turn his wrath on Ivan, quickly answered, "Mixing an infusion of wormwood with powdered root of asphodel creates a sleeping potion so powerful it's known as the Draught of Living Death. "

"The Bezor also referred to as Coprolite is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and is known for its strong detoxifying properties."

"As for Monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant, also known as aconite."

Hermione's answers were flawless, straight out of the potion textbooks.

Snape, however, seemed unimpressed.

He didn't know much about Hermione's background but had heard from other professors about an extraordinary young wizard this year (Ivan), rumored to be a descendant of the legendary Merlin.

'Heh…'

Inwardly, Snape scoffed. To him, it was nothing more than a tedious myth.

Frustrated by not regaining the upper hand, Snape asked Hermione several more challenging questions.

The little witch answered them smoothly, barely missing a beat before giving perfect responses.

"It seems," Snape said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "that compared to certain others, the young witch who can memorize entire books stands out." He added, "At least in rote memorization, the miss know-it-all is a shining example for certain people."

Hermione, who had been hoping Snape might award her points for her excellent answers, now felt more deflated than pleased.

Unfortunately, the little witch was not good at contradicting the professor.

"Sit down!"

Snape asked Hermione to sit down with dissatisfaction, and he glanced at Ivan who seemed to be watching a show.

He didn't like Ivan's eyes.

However, for some reason, Snape was reluctant to provoke this strange little wizard.

He couldn't explain this feeling.

It was like a poisonous snake smelling the scent of a beast and knew that the other party was very difficult to mess with.

It was not worth confronting it when there was no benefit...

_______

Read 15 Chapters ahead:

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Chapter 53: 53: Harry's Invitation

"Why didn't you all write it down?!"

After glaring at Ivan for a few seconds, Snape finally gave up trying to pick a fight with him and turned his frustration elsewhere, scolding the rest of the class in a low voice.

Suddenly, the classroom was filled with the rustling of quills hastily scribbling on parchment.

The Potions class continued, but things didn't get any easier for the Gryffindor students.

Snape paired them up and instructed them to brew a simple potion to cure boils.

As Snape drifted around the classroom, his long black cloak trailing behind him, he observed their attempts to measure dried nettles and crush snake fangs. His criticisms seemed almost inevitable.

The only ones who escaped his ire were Malfoy, and the duo of Ivan and Hermione.

Malfoy was clearly Snape's favorite, and Ivan, of course, did everything perfectly, leaving no room for Snape to find fault.

Still, despite their flawless work, Snape barely glanced their way.

'Is it because we didn't make any improvements?' Ivan thought, not too bothered by Snape's lack of acknowledgment.

He had to give credit where it was due: Snape's teaching style was impeccable.

He broke down the potion-making process into bite-sized steps, so clear that it was practically impossible to mess up—unless you weren't paying attention.

As Snape himself had put it: As long as you're not completely dim-witted, you should be able to brew this potion.

However, if a student managed to go beyond the instructions and improve the process, Snape wasn't one to withhold praise.

He wasn't the kind of teacher who forced students to rigidly follow his methods.

Learn and apply, and draw inferences from one example.

Snape himself had mastered his craft this way.

Ditott! Szzz!

Suddenly, a puff of acidic green smoke billowed out of the cauldron in the underground classroom, followed by a loud hissing sound.

Ivan turned his head and saw that Neville, partnered with Harry, had managed to melt their cauldron into a lopsided, misshapen mess.

The potion inside began spilling out onto the stone floor, burning holes in the shoes of several students nearby.

Within seconds, the entire class had scrambled onto their stools, trying to avoid the spreading liquid as the cauldron tipped over and the potion splashed around.

"Idiot!" Snape roared, stepping forward and preparing to wave his wand, but before he could act, there was a soft "Tergeo."

In an instant, all traces of the potion vanished from the floor.

Snape froze for a moment, then turned to see Ivan putting away his wand. He seemed to consider offering praise, but bit back the words before they escaped.

"I think you probably added the crushed snake fangs without removing the cauldron from the fire, didn't you?" Ivan asked calmly.

"Ah! Yeah!" Neville flinched, grateful for Ivan's intervention, knowing he had just avoided a trip to the hospital wing.

Unlike in the original timeline.

However, even though Neville was saved from immediate disaster, Harry wasn't as lucky.

"Potter," Snape snapped, turning his ire towards him, "why didn't you tell him not to add the crushed fangs?"

Snape: "Do you think it's fine just because he made a mistake? Gryffindor loses a point because of you."

"???"

Harry was completely baffled, with a look that said, 'Who am I? Where am I? What did I do wrong?'

"Don't argue."

Seeing that Harry was about to protest, Ronald gave him a swift kick under the table. "I heard Snape's especially unreasonable."

Frustrated, Harry could only glare at Snape, but it didn't matter—Snape didn't need a reason to target him.

"Dissatisfied with the professor's warning, Gryffindor loses another point because of you."

This point deduction felt like Snape was just flexing his authority.

At that moment, Harry really wanted to strangle Snape, completely bewildered by how unfair and unreasonable this professor was.

Slytherin—from the head of house down to the students—really seemed like a bad lot.

"See?"

On the other side, Ivan and Hermione had calmly finished brewing the potion that Snape had assigned. Ivan leaned over and said, "Don't get involved. You'll just get yourself in trouble."

"But..."

Hermione still wanted to know, "Why?"

Why was Snape so determined to pick on Harry? Was there some deep-rooted grudge?

"It's a long story."

Ivan smiled slightly: "I'll explain it to you in detail later when we have time."

"Professor!"

Ivan raised his hand: "We've finished brewing the potion."

The finished product made by Ivan and Hermione was excellent, and even Snape couldn't find any faults with it.

However, Snape did not award them any extra points.

"It seems that sometimes, fame isn't completely without merit."

Snape remarked coldly, "At least you and Miss Know-it-all have followed the rules properly."

'...'

This kind of biased treatment made Hermione fume with anger.

She had never encountered such an infuriating teacher before.

If it weren't for Ivan's presence, Hermione might have earned the first distinction of talking back to a professor during her Hogwarts career.

"T-Thank you, Ivan."

Neville, who was walking to the cafeteria with them, thanked Ivan on the way.

If Ivan hadn't stepped in when he did, Neville felt sure he would have been doused in the potion that could melt through the floor.

A trip to the school hospital would have been unavoidable.

"Neville, Potions class is definitely a bit challenging for you," Ivan acknowledged sympathetically.

Ivan told the truth: "Your memory is so bad that it's easy for you to forget the steps of potion-making and mix things up."

Ivan really had no way to fix this entirely.

The only solution he could think of was to let Neville take turns teaming up with him and Hermione during future potions classes.

With two top students guiding Neville step by step, there was hope for improvement.

If you lack talent, you can make up for it with hard work.

It's said that practice makes perfect, and Ivan's teaching approach for Neville was simple: practice.

Practice until it becomes second nature, forming a conditioned reflex.

"I... I understand," Neville said obediently. He knew Ivan was trying to help him, and he cherished the opportunity.

After lunch, Ivan and Hermione were heading to the library to return some books and borrow new ones.

"Ivan," they heard Harry call out. He was with Ronald. "Hagrid invited me to his cabin. Do you want to come along and check it out?"

"Hagrid?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.

Because of Ivan's influence, Hermione's relationship with Harry and Ronald was just average. They didn't have much in common, and her first impression of Hagrid was simply that of a giant she saw when they arrived off the train.

"Yes," Harry confirmed. "Hagrid lives on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. He invited me for afternoon tea."

"Thanks," Ivan replied. He didn't know why Harry had invited him, but the gesture seemed genuine.

Through his magical perception, Ivan could clearly sense the emotional fluctuations of those around him—especially their feelings toward him.

For example, Dumbledore came across as a kind old man, filled with warmth and care for his students, while Hermione's emotions were filled with admiration and a sense of attachment.

Ron and most of the other students felt a mix of envy, a bit of jealousy, and a touch of awe toward Ivan.

As for Harry Potter…

Harry did envy Ivan, but there was no hint of jealousy—only curiosity and gratitude.

Ivan could tell that Harry genuinely wanted to be friends with him.

'Pure and kind-hearted, as expected from the hero of a fairy tale,' Ivan thought, secretly giving Harry a good evaluation. He then smiled and accepted the invitation. "It would be my pleasure. Also, does Hagrid have a limit on the number of people who can visit?"

"I mean..." Ivan gestured toward Hermione, who looked eager and curious.

"Of course!" Harry said enthusiastically. "I think Hagrid would be happy to welcome the smartest young wizards and witches at Hogwarts."

Having left the Dursleys behind, Harry had learned to be more tactful in his speech.

Words are an art.

Calling Hermione "the smartest young witch" made her beam with pride.

Especially considering that it came from Harry Potter—the famed savior of the wizarding world.

Hermione may not have liked Ronald much, but she had a good impression of Harry.

If Ronald weren't around, Hermione would gladly welcome Harry into their circle.

Simply put, in her mind: Ronald, step aside! Stay away from my Ivan!

_________

Read 15 Chapters ahead of WN:

P@treon: HornyFBI


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